SANTA ROSA — More than a decade after the slayings of a young couple camping on a Sonoma County beach, a suspect is in custody.

This undated photo released by the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office shows Shaun Gallon. Sonoma County Sheriff Steve Freitas says suspect Gallon is in custody in the killings of a young couple on a Northern California beach more than a decade ago. Gallon was arrested in the killing of his brother and investigators interrogated him in the 2004 Jenner, Calif., killings. (Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office via AP)

Shaun Gallon, 38, of Forestville, is accused of the shooting deaths of Lindsay Cutshall, 22, and her fiance Jason Allen, 26, who were found in their sleeping bags on a driftwood-strewn beach near Jenner, California, on Aug. 18, 2004.

Gallon was charged six weeks ago with the March 17 shooting death of his 36-year-old brother in the home they shared with their mother in Forestville, Sonoma County Sheriff Steve Freitas said at a press conference Friday. Forestville is a Russian River Valley town about 12 miles inland from Jenner.

Freitas said Gallon had earlier come under scrutiny in the beach killings, but he gave no details why. After Gallon was arrested in his brother’s death, investigators interrogated him about the Jenner case.

He relayed “information about the killings that no other person could have known,” the sheriff. Authorities have since found further corroborating evidence, he said.

Jason Allen, Lindsay Cutshall

Police say they recovered an assault-style rifle they believe Gallon assembled. He is being held in Sonoma County jail without bail and has not been arrested or charged in the 2004 killings.

“We feel confident we have Jason and Lindsay’s killer,” Freitas said.

Authorities previously said they were still trying to find a motive in the shooting death of Gallon’s brother, Shamus, saying there was no known conflict between the two before the shooting.

Cutshall, from Fresno, Ohio, and Allen, from Zeeland, Michigan, had been working at a Christian youth camp in the Sierra foothills when they took a weekend trip to the coast. Authorities believe they were asleep when they were fatally shot. Neither victim was robbed or sexually assaulted.

Among the “persons of interest” previously investigated in the case was Joseph Henry Burgess, 62, who was killed in a 2009 shootout at a cabin near Jemez Springs, N.M. He had also been wanted in the 1972 killings of two Vancouver Island campers, a case that bore similarities to the Jenner killings. He was ruled out because his DNA did not match evidence from the Jenner case.

In a statement read by the sheriff on Friday, the dead couple’s parents thanked law enforcement, whose “humanity and professionalism would not allow them to give up the case.”

The parents’ statement also offered prayers for the suspect “who heartlessly committed this crime” and for the people around the beach town of Jenner, who had described themselves as haunted by the case.

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